The Warfare Is Mental

A Huge And Hitherto Undiscovered Cretacious Beast, Part I

March 27, 2009

Sorry, but the title's a little misleading. This post has nothing to do with evolution. Rather, I was on a thread recently when a commenter whose name I like and would enjoy hearing an explanation of (Mike aka MonolithTMA) made a passing comment that got me thinking:

I always wonder why theists bring up Ockham's Razor as it points about as far away from God as possible, (March 26, 2009 7:44 PM)

I thought that comment was interesting, but I didn't say anything at the moment, just tucked it into the "parsing" file. A few more Ockham's Razor -related comments were subsequently thrown out, the next from the blog owner, Karla:

Ockham's Razor to go with more simple answer that fits. . . To me it would appear that suggesting infinite un-caused universes is more complex than the answer of an eternal being.

Anonymous: And, you would be wrong, as I've explained. god is the most complex "answer" anyone can propose, because the level of complexity for a god would be far and away higher than any other explanation, not to mention all the additional questions it raises, the added layer of the supernatural over the natural universe, and the fact that it can't get off the ground scientifically. You can continue to ignore all of this and erroneously assert that "goddidit" is simple, but it clearly is not.

Does anyone else see the rational difficulties here?

On Full Disclosure & Knee Jerk Reactions

Enough with the whining about lack of full disclosure in (a)theist discussion. There are very logical reasons for not painting oneself into some silly little mental category that is both culturally fabricated and deduced via subjective experience. I believe it is ultimately foolish and non-productive for a group of people to assign themselves emotionally-charged and socially-conflated labels while attempting to have anything even remotely close to a rational discussion. FAR too often it's more of the same in the blogosphere: Consider your average internet (a)theist discussion: Believer A shows up on atheist website B and leaves some comment C that falls anywhere between Cro-magnon man and Einstein on the intelligence scale. Atheist commenters D – Z then proceed to accost believer A anywhere from Bill Cosby to Christopher Hitchens on the respect scale, each according to their own ideas of what A believes.

The Instinctive Off-Switch

March 25, 2009

Today I overheard somebody make a statement that really caught my attention and got me thinking. The topic of discussion was Oscar Wilde's book De Profundis, in which Wilde talks about his views on many things, including art, Christ, and art and Christ, which was particularly interesting but a different story altogether. In response, a person whom we'll call J, said, "I was brought up Catholic so I have developed this instinctive off-switch that flips as soon as I feel God is unnecessarily being drilled into my head."

I didn’t get the impression that Wilde was unnecessarily drilling God in anyone’s head. Rather, he seemed to be speculating on alternative interpretations of God. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Wilde hints in the book that he gives little credence to the God of Catholics and Christians. It seemed to me that the instinctive off-switch flipped in error, at the mere recognition of language that provided cerebral cues as to the subject matter. These cues may or may not have been interpreted correctly, and I couldn't help but wonder how often logic gets obscured by this psychological tendency.

It cuts both ways. Many believers have an instinctive off-switch which flips as soon as anybody presents an objection to their beliefs. Evolution is perhaps the penultimate example. At the end of the day, whether in the head of an atheist, a believer, you, me or the guy at the 7-11 down the street, instinctive off-switches always hinder critical thinking to some degree. We would do well to identify and uproot them.

How about you? Do you have any instinctive off-switches?

Public Challenge To Rationalists: On What Evidence Might We Rest?

March 20, 2009

First let me be clear: I consider myself a rational person, and the point of this post is not to denigrate rationalism or rationalists. The value of rationalism as a truth-filter and its tremendous impact on modern society cannot be overstated. When appropriately applied, the philosophy of rationalism leads to or complies with all sorts of tried-and-true concepts: The presumption of innocence sans proof of guilt, the scientific method, the burden of proof, etc. All of these things are sound derivatives of an evidence-based epistemology and by no means do I intend to challenge them.

Yet, any idea can descend into dogma, and no philosophy is good when our application of it encourages rigidity. Consequently, I've noticed I don't always agree with the scope and popular interpretations of rationalism that have ascended to the apex of today's epistemological food chain. In my opinion, they lend themselves all too well to dogmatic thinking and provide the perfect cover for those who unconsciously make the converse mistake of the gullible.

Going further, I often wonder if contemporary interpretations of rationalism entail an irrecoverable contradiction, and therein lies the topic of the post: Contemporary rationalism tells us to assume all claims without evidence are false, yet there's no evidence to support the claim that all claims without evidence are false, so on what evidence might we rest?

**Note: This is not an argument, conclusion or suggestion that all claims are equally credible, either, so don't start flanking me from that direction.

Correction To Yesterday’s Post

March 18, 2009

It appears I made a legitimate blunder in yesterday's post by overlooking part of DD's exposition that actually did equate A with B.

Good catch, Arthur – apologies, DD – and I'll have to retract point 1) from the arguments!

However, such is only a minor battle. I still feel points 2) and 3) stand, and I still feel the charge of post hoc reasoning doesn't stick.

MiracleQuest Continues: On Post Hoc Reasoning & The Re-Captitated Man

March 17, 2009

So it appears Deacon Duncan has accused me of post hoc reasoning regarding an objection I made to his elaboration on my re-capitation example. I'd like to take a moment to discuss why I feel his complaints are based on an overly-charitable interpretation of my objection, and I'm curious to hear what you think. The linked post is part of a lengthy ongoing discussion, so a little backstory might be helpful.

For the past month or so at EvangelicalRealism, we've been discussing the amount of credibility we can reasonably assign to miracle stories. Now, everyone has different definitions of a miracle and different thresholds of skepticism through which they filter observed events. Phenomena like the Marian apparitions at Zeitoun are obviously sufficient to convince some people, yet others remain skeptical. So how might we define a miracle objectively, in a manner that anyone can apply to any observed event?

I entered the discussion attempting to establish a rigorous set of criteria one could apply to determine whether or not any event might be considered a miracle. That didn't work out very well, so in further attempts to determine the 'miracle switch' in everybody's brains, I introduced the re-capitated man as a hypothetical example, asking skeptics how they would parse such an event. That is, if we observed a man get decapitated, then an hour later we observe the man's head re-attach after which he goes into the bar for a drink, would we have grounds to say something "miraculous" had occurred?

Public Challenge To Anyone: Biblically Justify The Omni^4 Claim, And What Do You Mean By God?

March 12, 2009

I've been waiting for another opportunity to poke holes in the lavish presuppositions folks often bring to POE arguments and this recent banter was just what I needed to get motivated.

To review, the Omni^4 Claim is the idea that the God of the Bible simultaneously possesses the following four qualities: omnipotence, omniscience, omnibenevolence and omnipresence. IOW, that the God of the Bible is all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving and all-present. As an aside, many people disregard omnipresence as irrelevant to POE arguments, but I thought I'd throw it in there for historical accuracy if nothing else.

MiracleQuest Continues: On Deacon Duncan’s “Unapologetic”

March 11, 2009

So I was about to hit "post" when I took a break, and found myself randomly staring at a TV that was on. It was that History Channel show called MonsterQuest and now you probably see the significance of the title. The show begins with narration on the nature of different sorts of monsters, you know, Big Foot, the New Jersey Devil, Werewolves, et cetera: "Monsters. Are they real? Or imaginary? Join us as science tries to find out."

That's exactly what's been going on at EvangelicalRealism for the past few weeks now: we've been on a MiracleQuest. Except that MonsterQuest can at least define exactly or near-exactly what it is they're looking for. Despite my stodginess on the issue and the naysayers, I think we'll soon solve these problems of definition and criteria. The more we talk about it, the more ideas get tossed out, the bigger the pile of potentially good ideas grows, and sooner or later we're there.

Upcoming TWIM Feature: The eBate

This is just a short post to introduce an idea I've been tossing around. Many good ideas spring from necessity. In online debate, I've seen a definite necessity for a streamlined approach. Blogging is like debating at a party. Sure, some good points get tossed out, but then somebody goes to grab a beer, then somebody else asks them something, then next thing we know the party's over, nobody's resolved anything except for a couple of fights, and there's a new party just a few days later.

The idea behind the eBate is simple: I'm willing to give Guest Posting status to others for the purpose of a controlled debate. The idea is an hour long 1-on-1 exchange about a pre-agreed topic, with comments off until the eBate is finished. I'm also going to employ at least one moderator from each side of the debate.

So, who will be first? Who will be the moderators? We'll just have to wait and see!

Public Challenge To Atheists: Why Believe In What Can Only Prove False?

March 8, 2009

Every now and again I meditate on the fact that the atheist / naturalist / materialist position cannot be empirically vindicated. By atheist / naturalist / materialist position, I mean the Epicurean idea that death entails the complete and final cessation of consciousness – that after we die, there will be no more thought, no more experience, no more anything.

One of the many disadvantages of this world view is that no other option can potentially befall it other than falsification. That is to say, even if this position is correct, we can never prove it, for how could we ever be conscious of the cessation of consciousness to prove that such was indeed the case? You need consciousness to prove anything, and indeed, the atheist / naturalist / materialist position cannot be empirically vindicated. It can only prove false, because if even one iota of consciousness continues in any form after death, the idea is effectively bunk.

And so the challenge is for any atheist, naturalist or materialist to satiate my curiosity by reasonably or at least politely answering the following questions: Why believe in an idea whose only possible empirical verification is disproof? What of the hypocrisy in committing yourself to a position that claims to rely on proof as the highest measure of truth when the position itself cannot possibly be proven?

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